The B.C. Securities Commission has handed a 10-year market ban to a Burnaby man who used the Internet to perpetrate “pump and dump” schemes and manipulate stock prices.

Jesse Hogan, 26, must also pay a $25,000 administrative penalty as part of the sanctions he received from the commission. In June, the BCSC found that Hogan used the Internet to disseminate misrepresentations about five companies traded on the Nasdaq Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board and manipulate the market in their shares.

Hogan bought shares in each of the five American junior technology companies and then he posted thousands of false messages on Internet bulletin boards suggesting that the companies were about to be taken over. He waited for the share prices to rise based on his false information and then he sold his shares at a profit. His total profit from the scheme was US$41,752. The commission will be applying to the B.C. Supreme Court for an order for Hogan to disgorge the profits that he made under the scheme.

The commission panel said Hogan’s actions struck at “one of the most fundamental elements” of the securities regulatory system — the maintenance of market integrity and public confidence in those markets.